Sweet Spot by Stella Rhys

13

LIA

I probably lookedlike a mess but rule one of lockdown mode was never look in the mirror. It was always too startling.

“Goddammit,” Sara mumbled to herself, still typing away at her office. “Fuck this stupid printer. If this printer had a life, I would end it.”

I laughed. She was still at work and we weren’t really having an active conversation – I just had her on speaker for company. It’d been too long since I’d had contact with another human being. At this point, I’d gone almost seventy-two hours without leaving my apartment. The last time I’d done that was a year ago, when I got my first big order: four hundred hand-painted truffles, each pair individually wrapped to serve as souvenirs for a June Magazine Christmas party. June was the publication Sara wrote for and she’d busted her ass to get me the job over the big company they usually hired. It was a huge opportunity and since it was a last-minute gig, I wound up working nonstop for three days and eating nothing but boiled eggs and trail mix for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was exhausting, kind of gross and probably not great for my health so I swore to never do it again.

Yet here I was, doing exactly that to get this business plan written.

“Why the fuck do I need yellow ink to print a black and white document?” Sara whispered furiously as I cleared off my kitchen counter, laying out my chocolate, cream, colored cocoa butter and molds. “And why do they turn the heat up so high in this damned office?”

“I don’t know. Take your pants off?”

“I don’t work from home, Lia, so I can’t show up to work every morning without my pants on. Not everyone’s as lucky as you.”

True. I was literally too busy to put pants on the past three days. All I wore was a T-shirt and pajama shorts while buckling down and making that business plan my bitch. The first day of lockdown mode had gone toward writing up an overview of my company. Yesterday had gone toward mapping out industry, customer and competitor analysis. Today, I’d written up my entire marketing plan and having just completed that, I was rewarding myself by relaxing with some cooking before bed.

“Lia. Tell me what you’re making so I don’t rage-quit my job right now,” Sara said, tossing something across her desk. It sounded like her mouse.

“I’ve got lavender truffles on deck.”

“I want that. In my face. What do you use? Real lavender?”

“Mm-hm. The flower heads are steeping in the cream right now, so they’ll be infused in the ganache.”

“Ugh, you little slut. That sounds so good,” Sara muttered, back to typing furiously. “I need like, four pounds of chocolate to calm me down right now. I’m so cranky.”

“Go find your fuck buddy,” I grinned. “That usually helps you get rid of the crankiness.”

“Yeah, I would’ve done that already but it’s eight o’clock and he went home two hours ago, like a normal person,” Sara said, drumming her fingers against her desk with that restless energy of hers. “Hey, maybe I should invite the overnight custodian to be my other fuck buddy. That way I could have a day shift one and a night shift one.”

I snorted. “Yeah? Is he hot?”

“He’s got nice forearms, I’ll give him that,” Sara laughed. “Seriously, though. I don’t know how you do it, Li.”

“Do what?”

“Focus without needing to physically bang out your frustration sometimes. I’d get so much done if I were you.”

“I think that was God evening out the playing field. You’d take over the world if you didn’t need to stop every twelve hours and have sex with someone.”

She paused. “I think there was a compliment in there. Somewhere.”

“There was,” I giggled but I quieted down fast when I heard the front door of the townhouse swing open downstairs. “Ooh. I gotta go.”

“Why? Hottie’s home?”

“You know the drill,” I said with a grin.

“Okay, bye. Save me a truffle or I’ll hurt you!”

“’Kay, bye!” I whispered, hanging up as I listened to Lukas come up the stairs. The first night of our deal, he’d come home to hear me giggling with Sara on the phone. I heard his footsteps pause in the hall and when I went to peek in the peephole, I confirmed him smirking at my door. With a tired laugh and groan, he said, “You’re killing me, Lia,” then disappeared into his apartment. I blushed to myself for probably thirty minutes after that.

Last night, it was similar. I’d peeked out into the hallway to see him gaze at my door for a good second before cursing under his breath and going in.

It was surprising to me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered and charmed. I’d half-expected Lukas to plain forget about me by day one. He had beautiful women of every kind at his beck and call – I really couldn’t imagine that he’d wait several days for me instead of round them up to have multiple threesomes in the penthouse of his favorite hotel.

Hearing him approach his door, I tip toed to mine, peeking out into the hall. Damn, I bit my lip when I saw him walking in looking tired but unbelievably sexy with his tie and jacket in his hand, his shirt un-tucked those deft fingers undoing the first few buttons.

Shit. I ducked when he peered over his shoulder at me.

“I can hear your slippers every time you come to the door,” he said, his voice a mixture of amusement and exhaustion. “You better be working your ass off in there. I heard you giggling on the phone the other night.”

“What – I am!” I retorted. “I haven’t left my house in three days!”

His door was open now but he leaned back against it to squint at my door. “Are you serious? That’s not healthy,” he laughed incredulously. He cocked his head as if to get a better look at me. “You can’t open the door for a second so I can at least look at you?” he asked.

“Trust me, you don’t want to.”

He massaged the back of his neck. “Trust me. I can’t think of anything I want more right now,” he said.

My cheeks were hot as I bit my lip again. There was surprisingly no flirtation in his statement – it was just matter-of-fact. And somehow, that made me blush even more. I turned away from the peephole and leaned my back against the door.

“One more day, Lukas,” I said, if even to remind myself. “You’ve already gone this long without breaking the rules. Don’t do it now.”

“Fine. I won’t,” I heard him say. It was quiet for another few seconds as I leaned against my door. But finally I heard Lukas laugh to himself, go inside and close the door.

But barely thirty minutes later, there was a knock.

“Seriously, Lukas?” I shook my head as I marched over to the door, gathering my messy hair into a topknot and securing it haphazardly with a tie. Knotting my robe, I suppressed the smile on my face and swung open the door. “Lukas, didn’t we just – oh!”

I blinked when I realized it wasn’t Lukas. The man at my door was about a foot shorter including the chunky bicycle helmet. His look was blank as he held out a paper bag, raising his eyebrows expectantly as he waited for me to take it.

“Lia Pope, yes?”

“Oh. Yes.” I grabbed it, confused as I examined the bag. “Sorry, what is this?” I asked. But by the time I looked up again, he was gone and Lukas was opening his door.

Goddammit. He was barefoot and shirtless, wearing just a pair of grey sweats that hung well below his hips. I stared. Didn’t even try to hide it. He looked good enough to lick. When I looked up, an irresistible grin spread across his lips.

“Lukas.” I shook my head. “This has to be breaking the rules.”

“Not at all. The rule was that I couldn’t knock. There was nothing about getting a delivery guy to do it for me.”

“Hm…” I said to disguise the fact that I was dangerously charmed. "Clever loophole,” I mused, looking into the bag and back up at him. “Wait. Did you just buy me dinner?” I asked, unable to hold back my smile.

“Yes.”

“You don’t think I can feed myself?”

“Not if you haven’t left the house in three days. I saw your fridge the other morning – all you had in there were three eggs and I used them for your omelet.”

“True,” I relented, completely thawed at this point. Closing my eyes, I breathed in the steam from the bag. “Mmm. Smells good. I’m not sure what it is but I think I’ll like it.”

“You will,” Lukas said with a faint smile. And for a couple seconds, he stood there, gazing at me like I were some picture at a museum.

“You alright?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why. Something just felt the slightest bit off. But he recouped fast.

“I’m better now,” Lukas said. “But I’ll let you go before your dinner gets cold. It tastes best when it’s hot.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll know when you see it. It’s from your favorite place,” he grinned, giving a sexy little nod goodbye before stepping back and closing the door.

I stared for a bit, confused. But when I retreated back into my apartment, I went straight to tearing into the food he’d ordered me. I couldn’t stop smiling when I saw what it was – paella.